La Peraleja

The church bell strikes noon and nobody stirs. Not a café waiter, not a shopkeeper, not even a dog. At 870 metres above sea level, on a wind-scoured plateau eighty kilometres east of Cuenca, La Peraleja keeps its own timetable: the one that ruled Spanish villages before smartphones, before tour buses, before anyone thought to ask for the Wi-Fi password.

Eighty-four residents remain. They live in a tight knot of lime-washed houses huddled round the sixteenth-century parish church, its stone bell-tower patched so often the masonry looks like quilt-work. Streets are barely two metres wide; when a tractor rumbles through, pedestrians press against cool plaster walls still warm from yesterday’s sun. The only other traffic is the occasional hunter’s Land Cruiser heading for the cereal fields that roll away in every direction, bronze in late summer, emerald after spring rain.

The Architecture of Emptiness

There is no ticket office, no interpretive panel, no souvenir fridge magnet. What La Peraleja offers is a lesson in rural Castilian building: tapial (mud-and-chalk) walls thick enough to swallow winter cold, Arab-tile roofs weighted with stones against the gales, wooden doors the colour of burnt cinnamon. Many hang ajar, revealing cobbled courtyards where a single geranium blooms in an olive-oil tin. Peek through and you glimpse the original Spain—stone sink, bread oven, corral for a mule—untouched because nobody ever thought it worth updating.

The church keeps its original key, five inches of iron kept by Señora Antonia who lives three doors down. Knock and she’ll let you in, crossing herself almost absent-mindedly while explaining that the baroque altarpiece was paid for with wheat profits after the 1785 harvest. Light a candle if you like; coins in the box go towards repainting the cracked nave, a task begun in 1997 and paused ever since funds ran out.

Walking the Paramo

Outside the village, paths follow medieval livestock routes. They are unsigned, so download a GPS track before leaving Cuenca or accept the very real possibility of spending an hour among thyme and rosemary trying to relocate the car. The reward is mile-wide silence broken only by skylarks and, if you tread softly, the rasp of partridges scuttling under tamarisk bushes. Bring water; streams dry up by June and there is no kiosk selling isotonic drinks.

A gentle four-kilometre loop drops into the shallow Barranco de Valdecabras, climbs past abandoned threshing circles and returns along the ridge in time for lunch. Serious walkers can link a chain of deserted hamlets—Valhermoso, Villalba de la Sierra, Campillo—forming a 22-km figure-of-eight that needs a full day and a head for navigation. Mobile reception is patchy; Vodafone cuts out entirely after kilometre nine.

What Passes for Gastronomy

La Peraleja itself has no bar, no restaurant, no Sunday-morning market. The last grocer shuttered in 2003 when Doña Pilar retired at 78. Self-caterers should stock up in Cuenca’s Mercadona before tackling the mountain road. If you arrive empty-handed, the nearest edible option is the petrol-station sandwich in Beamud, eighteen kilometres of hairpins away.

For a sit-down meal, drive half an hour to Uclés where the monastery parador serves roast suckling lamb (€28) and Alcarria honey ice-cream that justifies the detour. Locals recommend September for wild-mushroom season: chanterelles and níscalos appear after the first storms, and villagers who ignored you all morning will suddenly offer directions to their secret collecting grounds. Accept the information graciously, then remember Spaniards measure distance in “five minutes” that translate to forty on foot.

When to Come, When to Stay Away

Spring brings almond blossom and the chance of snow flurries on the same morning; pack layers and waterproof boots. Summers roast—daytime 35 °C is normal—yet the plateau cools fast after dusk; a light jacket feels welcome by ten o’clock. Autumn paints the cereal stubble gold against violet thyme, the photogenic moment that makes hardy hikers forgive the scarcity of facilities. Winter is blunt: biting wind, possible road closures after snow, and the unnerving realisation that the nearest hospital lies 75 minutes away. Come then only if you enjoy solitude sturdy enough to border on existential.

Accommodation within the village amounts to one self-catering cottage restored by a Madrid architect who weekends here. It sleeps four, costs €90 a night and books up months ahead with Cuenca families fleeing city heat. Alternatives are scattered across the hills: stone farmhouses on Airbnb, prices €60–€120, invariably down tracks that punish low-clearance hire cars. Check tyre insurance before you leave the airport.

The Festival That Brings the Dead Back to Life

For fifty weekends a year La Peraleja dozes. The fifty-first is the fiesta patronal, usually the second weekend of August, when exiles return with grandchildren and coolboxes of frozen croquetas. The population swells to 400; the square hosts a makeshift bar under plastic bunting, a DJ plays eighties Spanish pop until three, and teenage boys who have never met gamble their pocket money on a rudimentary bingo. By Monday the village is silent again, litter swept up, grandmothers weeping quietly on doorsteps as cars disappear east towards Valencia and Madrid.

Semana Santa is quieter still: a dawn procession, hooded penitents carrying a tiny Virgin, no brass band because only three men remain who can play trumpet and two of them have emphysema. Visitors are welcome to follow; nobody will offer commentary in English, but the sight of candle-flame wobbling across medieval walls needs no translation.

Directions, Warnings, Parting Thoughts

From Cuenca take the N-320 towards Tarancón, then the CM-210, CM-211 and finally an unclassified road so narrow the wheat licks both wing mirrors. Allow ninety minutes for what the map claims is sixty kilometres. Sat-navs lose nerve halfway; keep going when the tarmac turns to gravel, then turns back to tarmac without warning. The only landmark is a stone crucifix where the road forks; bear right or you’ll end up in a shepherd’s yard guarded by an unchained mastiff.

Fill the tank before leaving the motorway—village pumps close at 14:00 and may not reopen for days. Bring cash; contactless readers are science fiction here. Most importantly, temper expectations: La Peraleja will not entertain, thrill or pamper. It will, if you arrive curious and patient, show you the Spain that guidebooks relegate to footnotes—an honest, ageing place where every stone has a name and every silence tells a story. Then the bell will strike again, the wind will rise, and you’ll understand why some maps mark the village in the faintest grey ink they can print.